In marketing news, yesterday I went to my chiropractor, and even before I was allowed to sit down in the waiting room, his wife/business manager stopped me. "D [the chiropractor] finished your book last night and he loved it! He says it's so good!" The receptionist, who read (The Single Eye) previously and recommended it to her boss, chimed in with her agreement. "I'm going to read it next," said Mrs. D, and I encouraged all of them to write me reviews (it's cool, because none of them are my friends on Facebook). When Chiropractor D came in to do my adjustment, we sat there talking about the book and its characters before he even got around to cracking my spine. He said, "I thought the first twenty pages were a little slow, but then it really took off." Instant critical voice thinking, O gosh, maybe I'd better change that! But no. The book is published. And I just looked and the first 20 pages are 80% character set-up/romance plot and 20% suspense plot. My target audience is women of a certain age, and it's probable they'll like it just fine. I could now say something self-deprecating like, "At this rate I expect to be an overnight success by 2030." But what place has that in a business thread? Rather, my takeaway is 1) capitalize on the interest by finishing the next book! and b) generate the welcome letter for the email list! These are the readers who would be interested in joining, and every list has to start somewhere.
